When the clouds come
by lilMissWombat
Summary: Don Eppes has an adopted daughter, Katie, which was his late wife's child. Will he able to raise her, despite the pain of having to do it without his wife? And will Don be able to protect her against the dangers that his job brings? TRIGGER WARNING The story will not follow the timeline from the TV series, but it will be heavily inspired by it.


**Disclaimers and notes**

Obviously I do not own the marvelous characters that is Don Eppes, Charlie Eppes, Alan Eppes, Megan, David, Colby or any of the other marvelous people we know and love from Numb3rs. I only own the story.

This timeline is slightly different from the one in the tv series, although I do take a lot of inspiration from it. Charlie has not started helping out on that many FBI cases yet and stick mainly to the ones directly involving numbers. But the team that we start out with is Megan, David and Colby, since these were my favorites and fit better to my story and where I want to take it. Key moments from the storyline in the TV series will probably appear, although the order may be different.

**Episode 1**

It was just another day at the office. They had after weeks finally nailed down one of their suspects for a huge fraud scam and after a little pushing from David and Colby's side, the guy had confessed. In the end, he had figured he would plead guilty and throw once of his accomplishes under the bus in exchange for cutting off some of the years of his sentence. A guy that had cheated his way to several millions of dollars and robbed people of their savings account had thus struck a deal and with a little luck he would be out again within a few years.

Don shook his head in disgust. Sometimes he really hated his part of the job, but he understood the system. That's how they caught more bad guys and he had to figure that at least that counted for something. With a sigh he threw the file on his desk and leaned back in his chair. He gave a quick glance to his wristwatch before closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose. He could feel a headache coming on – one of those that meant he had been working for too long without a break and that he needed to get some rest. Fortunately for him his shift was almost over.

"You okay?" he heard a soft female voice ask next to him.

"Yeah, I'm fine Megan. Just a little tired that's all".

"Yeah, well after this meeting is over, you'll be able to get home and get a nap".

Don grinned and shook his head. "Yeah, I should be so lucky". With a deep breathe he rose to his feet and grabbed the file he had just thrown on his desk. "Okay, let gather the troops. Colby, David". Don quickly gathered his team around him and opened the file in his hand. It was a file over a completely new case, which had landed on his desk the minute the administration heard that they had finished their old one. No rest for the weary, Don thought to himself, as he explained the case briefly to his team. The case involved a seral killer, whom raped his victim before murdering them. He was beginning to delegate tasks and next actions to take in order to solve the case, when a loud voice suddenly attracted his attention.

"Daddy!", a 6-year-old girl's voice sounded through the office, which made the entire floor stop to see what was going on. Don was sincerely surprised, when he saw his daughter rushing towards him with a big grin on her face and her ponytail waving around in the air behind her. He barely managed to close the case file, which contained very graphic pictures of dead woman, before kneeling down and embracing his daughter, as she rushed into his arms.

"Hi sweatpea. What are you doing here?". Over his daughter's shoulder he could see his father rushing towards them, while sending Don an apologetic look. He was about to ask his father the same question, when his daughter unhooked herself from his arms and pointed at her teeth.

"Look!", she said and smiled proudly. Don could not help but smile himself at his daughter, when he saw the gap in her front teeth, where there was a tooth that morning.

"Finally lost it, huh?"

"Uhuh", she nodded. "Colby helped me take it out".

There was a shifting behind them, as his agent heard his name, although Don of course knew that his daughter meant her friend, Colby, from school. Still, he was not particular please about the thought of some other six year old putting his hand into his daughter's mouth and pulled out her teeth. He frowned and was about to speak, when his daughter once more interrupted him.

"Oh and do you know what we did today?", she practically jumped with the need to tell him.

"No, what did you…"

"We talked about planets and stars and far galasies and I told them, I told them about uncle Charlie and what he said. And he said that there was only 238.900 miles to the moon but that there is so much more distance to the sun! Like hundred times more and then, and then. Then when they didn't believe me, because they are the same size, I told them that it's because the sun is so much bigger", Katie stretched her arms out as far as she could reach them and almost smacked her hand into the desk in the process, "that it just SEEMS like it's the same distance but its not! And then…".

"Look sweatpea", Don gently interrupted his daughter, because he knew that she could on forever if he let her. "I really do want to hear about all this stuff, but do you think you can wait with telling me for a bit? Daddy's not quite done at work and you're a little early…", with the last words he glanced up at his father, who send him another apologetic look.

"I know, I know. But my meeting ended early, so I thought I might as well pick her up", Alan started to explain himself. "And then when we got here Donna in the reception said we could go right up and I tried to tell her that it wasn't a good idea, but you know how she gets…". Alan made a gesture to the 6 year old at his feet and Don raised to his feet.

"Dad, it's fine. Look, you can settle down in one of the conference rooms. It's pretty quiet right now and…".

"Hey", Katie suddenly said and reached out her hand to Megan, whom was standing behind Don. "I'm Katie".

Megan send her a big smile and shook her hand. "I'm Megan". The three agents had been first highly shocked and then highly entertained to see the energetic little girl hug their macho boss and call him daddy. They had enjoyed seeing a rare moment of their boss being caught of guard and David and Colby had shared a silent snicker, when they heard the soft and sweet voice he had used when talking to his daughter. The whole things was entirely comical to them, despite their initial surprise of discovering that their boss had a daughter they knew nothing about.

"Do you help catch bad guys with my dad?", Katie asked and stared Megan with her big brown inquisitive eyes.

Don turned around and placed a gentle hand on his daughter's head. He opened his mouth to spare his agents from the onslaught of his daughter's questions that he knew was about to come, but Megan beat him to it.

"I do indeed", Megan said in a higher-pitched voice than she would normally use and pointed at the two male agents next to her. "Together with these two fellows. Their names are David and Colby".

David reached out his hand to the little girl, when Megan called his name and Katie took it with a polite; "hello".

Colby was standing behind the half-way of Don's desk with only his upper body sticking up. He settled for a wave, which Katie eagerly reciprocated.

"Hi!", Katie said before turning her gaze back on Megan. "So, what is it like? Catching bad guys? Is it fun? When did you start? Did you always wanna do it? How many have you caught? My daddy never wants to talk about it when he's home, but I keep asking him anyway. I want to know how…"

"Okay sweetie", Don said and kneeled next to his daughter again to catch her attention. She seemed slightly annoyed by being cut off, but still listened with an amount of concentration he would never have credited an older kid. "Look daddy and these people need to work for a bit more okay. Do you think you can sit and wait in there", Don pointed towards one of the empty conference rooms with glass walls, "while we finish up?"

"Half an hour", Katie though to herself. "That's 30 minutes. 30 minutes is 1800 seconds, which is also the same as a 1/48th of a day".

David whistled softly, impressed by the little girl's math skills.

Katie turned around and send him a proud smile, revealing her missing front tooth. "My uncle taught me that".

"I'm sure he did", Colby said and nodded.

"Yes, Katie. It's that long", Don said to get her back on track. "Do you think you can wait that long?".

Katie hesitated. "You said we would go to the ice cream truck today. If I wait do I get extra gummies on my ice cream?"

Don had to force back a smile. Katie had developed a weird obsession lately with mixing gummi bears in her ice cream. He pretended to think about it for a while. "You know what, if you can sit in that room without making a fuss until I'm done, then you can put as many gummies in your ice as you want AND we'll make it a triple scoop ice cream".

Katie's eyes widened in shock, as she took in this new information. She only took a second to think about it, before she ran to the door of the conference room.

"What for your grandpa, you little rocket!", Alan yelled after her and send Don a headshake, before he hurried after her. Don saw the glint in his father's eyes though and he couldn't help but smirk himself, as his daughter politely waited by the door and held it open for a grandpa, before rushing through it herself and practically throwing herself onto one of the chairs. She folded her hands together and stated her wait.

Don rose to his feet again and glanced over at his team, who were all smirking at him and send him teasing looks. David raised his eyebrows in question.

Don just waved them away and rolled his eyes. Within a second the lead agent in him had returned and he opened the file of the new case again. He quickly picked off where they had been interrupted and ran through the new case of serial murder/rapist with them.

"Good", he said, when he was all understood the case fully and knew what they each needed to do. He glanced down at his clock. "Now, let's have that eval meeting of the fraud case we just closed". He waved his team into the other conference room they had, where the walls were also made of glass. Don glanced over into the other conference room, where his energetic daughter was already starting to get bored, despite his father's eager attempts to entertain her. She was puffing air against the glass with her breath and had begun drawing on the windows with her finger before the mist disappeared and she had to start over.

"So, Don Eppes has a daughter, huh?" David said, when he noticed where his boss was looking.

"Yeah, when were you planning on telling us?" Megan said and leaned forward in the chair she had sat down in.

"Oh, it just… you know, it never really came up", Don said and tried to wave it away.

"Maybe he hid it from us with purpose", Colby said with a glint in his eyes and opened the file of the case, they had just closed earlier that day, on the table in front of him. "I mean, no offense Don, but that was some serious Charlie skills she showed out there. You sure she's not Charlie's secret love child?"

Megan send him a disapproving look, but Don just laughed it off. "Nah, she adores Charlie. She always has. If he knew as much about soccer as he did math, she could probably tell you who won the world cup the year you were born. Besides", he shrugged his shoulders, "Katie's not really related to any of us – unless Charlie really does have a dark hidden secret he hasn't told me about".

"You know I did think that she didn't look very much like you Don", Megan said.

"Yeah her mother was Hispanic. She had her before we were married".

A heavy silence grew between the four. It was David who finally broke it. "Was?"

"Yeah". Don got a distant and harsher look in his eyes. Megan could practically see him shutting down in front of them and putting up the wall that he usually kept around him at work. "She died three years ago when Katie was three".

"How?", Megan asked, hoping to get more information before Don decided he had had enough of sharing for the door.

Don hesitated for a while. "Car crash" he finally mumbled and walked to the door. He leaned out and called out for a few other technicians and agents that had also played a part in the fraud case.

While they quickly filed to the door, Colby shared a heavy look with David. Megan had a frown on her forehead, while she stared at Don, trying to catalogue this new information she suddenly knew about him into the profile she had made of the man. She of course could have read his file, just all of the people on her team could read other's files. They were already there on the database, just available for them to take and read. But there was an official policy against it at the bureau and it was seen as generally rude to pull down the file of another colleague without case and read his personal file.

When entering a new team, one was usually given a short overview of each of their new team members. This overview usually consisted of some basic info about family history, careers and experience. It was meant to make the teams work together, since they would have a better chance of drawing on each other strengths and compensate for other people's weaknesses. It was rather unusual that such a file did not include something so essential as the death of a spouse of the existence of a daughter, whom the person had close relations with. Don must have made a personal request to keep any mention of his late wife and his daughter out of those files and she could only ask herself, why that was? Why did Don feel the need to try and hide this from them?

She did not have time to think further about it though, since the room was already filled up and the first technician began to talk about how, they initially had discovered the fraud. She kept a close eye on Don throughout the meeting though and she noticed how his gaze kept wandering back to the room, where his father and daughter were. Every five minutes or so Don would send a quick glance in their direction, almost as if to reassure himself that his daughter was still there.

Overprotective trait, she thought to herself and smiled a little. No big surprise there. She had seen the way he acted around Charlie, whenever he pulled him in on a case or two.

She did also notice the warmth in his eyes and the smile that lingered around his lips, as he studied his daughter's movements. It was clear to anyone that he was very fond of his daughter. No one needed a trained profiler's eyes to see this. And that only led her back to the same question; Why keep his daughter a seceret?

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"I want the final report before 10 o'clock tomorrow morning", Don yelled to everyone before people started filing out of the room. The meeting had ended well and Don was starting to file his own papers together to sit down and do his own rapport and file away the papers.

"Don let me do that", Megan said and reached out for the files.

He looked up at her. "You sure?"

"Yeah, let me finish all the paperwork while you go off with your family. I'm not the one with a cute ice cream date waiting for me"

"Nah, you just have the ice cream", Colby teased as he walked by and she grabbed a folder and wagged him on his back. He hurried up and half-ran out the door with a smirk on his face.

Don hesitated for a while before smiling. "Okay". He handed her the folder. "Thanks Megan"

"I'll have your rapport on your desk tomorrow morning, when you meet in. I'll add the basic and then you fill in with your own observation"

"Sounds good", he smiled his thanks again and rushed to the other conference room. Megan smiled when she saw his hasty movements and grinned, when he opened the door and Katie exhaled another laud; "daddy" before jumping into his arms.

"So Don has a daughter, huh?", David said behind her. "Never would have seen that coming".

"I know right?", Megan said and looked at the little family, as they went to the elevator. Don was holding his daughter's hand in his and he was jumping up and down by his side, full of excitement and life, probably telling him about some marvelous adventure she had had at school that day.

"You know there's nothing in his file about that, right? You know the overview we all get when we transfer to a new team".

"Yeah, I know", Megan nodded and collected the rest of the papers and went out the door with David following behind her. They both sat down at their desk, close to Colby who was already working of his own report of the fraud case. He was throwing around a small ball in his one hand, as he usually did when dealing with boring paperwork.

"I guess he wants to keep it a secret", Megan continued.

"Yeah but why though?", Colby asked a little taken back. "I mean, concealing a daughter from your team… and the fact that he's a widower. That pretty big stuff, right?"

Megan just shook his shoulders. "He must have his reasons".

"I wonder who the father is", Colby said and then quickly looked at the others, when seeing his mistake. "You know what I mean. He said the girl's mother had her before they met. There must be a bio dad out there somewhere. I wonder if he's in the picture?"

"Somehow I can't really see Don sharing his fatherly love with anyone", Megan said and smiled to herself. Don was far too protective a character for that. But maybe his love for his daughter could overcome the protectiveness he might have for her and he could let another man into her life. He would have to do it eventually, she mulled to herself, once she started dating. Don would definitely have some issues dealing with that, when that time came around.

"Maybe he doesn't even know who it is", David said and shrugged his shoulders. "It might be the mother never told him. Or maybe he's dead too".

"Yeah maybe", Colby mumbled and they all returned to their work, focusing on finishing up their reports so that they could get started on the new case.


End file.
